7 ms·

Yes. This is why I refuse to donate to my alma mater anymore. Tuition has nearly tripled in in fourteen years while they are still teaching the same number of s

• muninn_ 9y ago
  Consider donating time or money to underfunded public schools or community colleges. A lot of these programs are chronically underfunded and teach those who are most likely disadvantaged in the first place.
• TrainedMonkey 9y ago
  I do agree that admin costs are too high. However I think most of the tuition growth is due to decreases in state and federal funding.
  • Finnucane 9y ago
    That's true for state schools, where subsidies have been cut almost universally.
    • ams6110 9y ago
      Look at any state university org chart from 30 years ago compared to today. The difference will be striking. Yes state subsidies are down, but administrative growth has also been accelerating.
  • mnm1 9y ago
    This is a private school so I'm not sure how much that applies. I haven't been able to find any figures on this, however, so I suppose it's possible.
• Finnucane 9y ago
  Sadly, big donors, the ones who can give multimillion dollar gifts, aren't really helping. They're prone to ego-driven gifts of big monuments to themselves rather than funding scholarships or research.
• oh_sigh 9y ago
  Allowing discharging of student debts in bankruptcy will lead to lenders tightening who they loan to, leading to the poorest of Americans not getting loans, and therefore no academic way to claw out of heavy poverty.
  • ssambros 9y ago
    Why won't a poor high-SAT-score, future STEM graduate be able to get a loan? Banks will mostly take into the account the probability of loan repayment, not how poor the person is right now.
    • oh_sigh 9y ago
      People from poor families drop out at a higher rate than non poor family peoples, as well as carry over lower average earnings and a higher likelihood of defaulting on loans even after graduation. A single generation getting a diploma will not equalize the gap between poorer and richer families.
    • ams6110 9y ago
      A poor, high-SAT-score, STEM student will get scholarships, not loans.
• barake 9y ago
  Is tuition actually going up by that much? Most schools raise prices to raise scholarships to raise rankings, leaving revenue virtually flat. There is a coordinated effort to temporarily exempt schools from antitrust rules so they can collectively coordinate a tuition drop, and stop the fake scholarship arms race.
  • mnm1 9y ago
    Yes, tuition is actually going up by that much (20k vs 50k). Even inflation adjusted it's still almost double. Room and board has also almost tripled (5k vs 15k). At this rate, in fifteen years or so, I'd expect to pay 100k a year just in tuition or almost half a million per child. Luckily I have no kids, but if I do they're going to learn prefect German or other language that gets them free tuition in Europe. Fuck these prices. Even for a software engineer making good money, they are simply not achievable.
    • learc83 9y ago
      Where are you seeing tuition of $20k or $50k? Public universities in state are closer to $10k a year, even out of state isn't usually anywhere near $50k.
      • mnm1 9y ago
        My alma mater, a northeast, private university ranked in the top 50. It was actually ranked higher when I was there and cost $20k. Now tuition alone is just shy of $50k.
        • 3131s 9y ago
          Sounds familiar. I went to a highly ranked private college where tuition went from 35k in 2007, to about 50k only 4 years later, and now it's around 60k I believe. The professors were mostly excellent and well known in their fields, but at the same time many departments were understaffed while the university spent 42 million dollars on an "Institute for Global Citizenship" that ended up being mostly unused, though it is pretty: https://img.apmcdn.org/c1675e4ec7a7aec84a32edbfe93999b018c7007a/uncropped/cd77f3-20090921-markimhall.jpg https://img.apmcdn.org/c1675e4ec7a7aec84a32edbfe93999b018c70...
• extrapickles 9y ago
  When student loans were able to be discharged in bankruptcy, it was popular to declare bankruptcy on graduation. By the time they saved up enough for a down payment on a house, the bankruptcy will have fallen off the records, so effectively they got a free education (not the ideal mechanism for doing so, better to give people free education upfront). Maybe there is a middle ground where student debt is not easily discharged, but can be in some cases (eg: graduated 10-20yrs ago, could never find a steady job). Ideally we as a country should decide to make trade schools/college free (or at least give people $10k/yr towards tuition). This would not be a huge increase the in budget as we already spend ~$10k/yr (depends on state) to send kids to high school.
  • praxulus 9y ago
    All student loans should be subject to income-based repayment. They can still be very difficult/impossible to discharge in bankruptcy, but you shouldn't have to make significant payments on them unless you're actually making decent money.
    • tybit 9y ago
      This is how it works in Australia and it works very well IMO. It also indexes with inflation so that there isn't a major stress if you graduate with a low paying job and work your way up to a higher salary. This does mean its everyone's lowest priority to pay off, but you can't reasonably avoid paying it other than not making an income.
      • learc83 9y ago
        It works exactly like this in the US. People who aren't currently in college just aren't aware of it.
    • learc83 9y ago
      All federal student loans work exactly like this, and Federal loans account for 90% of all loan disbursements.
    • 9y ago
• gravypod 9y ago
  > donate to my alma mater I've heard of people doing this but why would you ever have donated your money to someone you have already paid? I wouldn't donate to my pizza place, my doctor, or my barber. Why would a college be different?
  • ChrisBland 9y ago
    I donate to my university, I do it to fund scholarships and programs that I benefited from when attending. I don't donate to the 'general fund'. Although the bulk of my donations to my alma mater go to cancer treatment center at the university medical center which relies on fundraising for research and other programs which I believe will benefit all. I would never donate to revamp a student union as I believe that should be paid for by the University.
    • Armisael16 9y ago
      Money is fungible. Every dollar donated to the medical center is a dollar freed up from the general fund (until the medical center is totally funded with earmarked donations, of course).
  • kerbalspacepro 9y ago
    Donating to your Alma Matter signals that (1) you succeeded and (2) that your Alma Matter helped you succeed. Given enough donations, this boosts your own prestige. Or, reverse this: if I go to a school and that school suddenly starts to suck, then I will be tainted with the school sucking. Either way, it's a problem of credentialism.
  • lmm 9y ago
    My college did a lot of good for me, and the staff I interacted with seemed to be working below-market because they believed in what they were doing. It's a non-profit institution so I expect they would spend donations on something that they thought (rightly or wrongly) furthered education rather than just giving them to someone. And what I paid at the time was subsidised by previous donors and the government, at a time when I couldn't've afforded to pay much more; now that I've done well in life, in a way that seems at least partly off the back of that education, it seems fair to contribute something back.